Federal regulators have opened a new investigation into Toyota’s reporting of defects, this one concerning steering problems in about 1 million trucks and sport utility vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires companies to report defects within five days, yet Toyota waited almost a year between recalling vehicles with steering problems in Japan and issuing a recall on the same vehicles in the United States. The recall in Japan in 2004 was for a faulty steering-relay rod in 4Runners and pickups made between 1989 and 1999, The Washington Post reports.
The defect was later linked to 15 crashes and three deaths in the U.S. Toyota officials said the recall was delayed in the U.S. because they had no information that the problem existed here and that Japanese drivers put more stress on their steering. But NHTSA learned Friday that the automaker received 41 customer complaints about steering problems before the 2004 recall in Japan.
